Jůza Repeats in Bochum

Sunday, November 18, 2012

This weekend had it all: big names, rising stars, close matches, and exciting new decks. Czech super-pro Martin Jůza used one, a Somberwald Sage-powered Craterhoof Behemoth concoction developed by Brad Nelson, to take home the trophy.

But let's start this short recap at the beginning. On Saturday, a whopping 1,731 players had entered the tournament, played in nine grueling rounds of Standard; afterwards the field was cut down to just 198 who returned on Sunday for seven more rounds; at the end of those, only eight players remained. Among a lot of promising young talent, one name immediately stood out: Martin Jůza had now made the fourteenth Grand Prix Top 8 of his career, with wins so far in Hiroshima, Portland, and actually right here in Bochum two years ago. Would he be able to repeat his performance from 2010? Of course he would.

His Top 8 matches were close—all went to three games—but he won them all. He never got to cast the signature card of his deck, Craterhoof Behemoth, not in the quarterfinal, where he bested Sascha Stein's Jund deck, not in the semis, when his Lingering Souls tokens outnumbered Kamil Napierski's Zombies, and not in the finals, where Gavony Township and Loxodon Smiter raced Fabian Dickmann's UWR tempo deck. But he did make good use of an excellent, somewhat transformational sideboard which kept his opponent guessing and earned him a deserved fourth Grand Prix title.

Would you change anything about your deck and why would you change it?

No Delver, more lands, but not the usual UW Flash list. Geist is insane.

Pierre Dagen

Age: 25 Hometown: Paris, France Occupation: Business consultant

Guild: Orzhov

Previous Magic accomplishments:

Played several Pro Tours (one Top 50 in Nagoya), three Grand Prox Top 16s.

What deck are you playing and why did you choose it?

Bant Control because Sphinx's Revelation seemed to be way ahead of this Standard's power level. Basically, it crushes any form of nonblue non-Threaten deck. The sideboard is fairly efficient too, and the mana base is sweet. You absolutely can't beat UW, though.

Would you change anything about your deck and why would you change it?

We know you like decklists, so here are the decklists of the people who finished in places 9 through 16. Note the 3 Black Cat in the sideboard of Milan Niznansky's Blue-White Aggro are not a typo. Milan knew that he didn't want to sideboard many cards with his deck at all, and he put 3 Black Cat in his board simply to jinx his opponents. Maybe he ended up jinxing himself though, as he lost the last round playing for Top 8. Still, finishing so highly at Grand Prix tournament with 3 wasted sideboard slots deserves some respect.

In game 2, Vanek had an amazing mana curve that gave him 9 power worth of creatures on turn 4. Tajak's first play was a turn 3 Geist of Saint Traft and looked very far behind. Swift Justice to gain 5 life was nice, but it wasn't enough to race Vanek's Zombies.

Sascha Stein (Jund) vs. Martin Juza (Hoof, there it is!)

"No, not Jund," Martin Juza said when he received Stein's decklist, apparently unhappy with the matchup. In game 1, Juza's Lingering Souls tokens and 1-toughness mana guys were no match for Stein's Olivia Voldaren, and Juza was off to a quick loss.

Could Stein overcome Juza's big reanimation plan? He certainly did his best in game 3, by putting on pressure with Huntmaster of the Fells and by burning Juza's creatures, but Stein was stuck with two Thundermaw Hellkite in hand and only 4 lands in play. When Stein finally found his 5th land, it was already too late as Loxodon Smiter and Thragtusk again came in for the kill.

Sascha Stein 1 - Martin Juza 2

Kamil Napierski (B/R Zombies) vs. Enrich van Eijsden (Jund)

Enrich van Eijsden is only 16 years old, but is already playing in a Grand Prix Top 8---a great start of a Magic career. In game 1, van Eijsden's early Huntmaster of the Fells was stolen with Mark of Mutiny and subsequently sacrificed to Bloodthrone Vampire. A nice play, but Napierski hadn't drawn many creatures, and the few ones that he did draw fell to van Eijsden's removal. A short while later, a duo of Thragtusks gave van Eijsden the first game.

Pierre Dagen (Bant control) vs Fabian Dickmann (UWR Geist midrange)

Game 1 started out slow with both players ramping their mana and drawing cards. A bunch of counterspells and Supreme Verdicts later, the board still hadn't developed much. Dickmann's Moorland Haunt gave him an advantage, though, and a group of 1/1 tokens got in for many, many turns. A flashed-in Restoration Angel later, Dagen was already down to 4 life. Double Pillar of Flame then handed the first game to Dickmann.

In game 3, Supreme Verdict, Searing Spear, and tons of counterspells meant that nothing would stay in play for long. A while later, Thragtusk was copied with Clone, but once again creature removal spells cleared the board. Eventually, Dickmann took over the game with Tamiyo, the Moon Sage. He was able to build it up to ultimate and started casting the same Searing Spear over and over again to close out the match.

Pierre Dagen 1 - Fabian Dickmann 2

Sunday, 9:30 p.m. - Matchup madness

by Frank Karsten

Over 1000 matches of Standard have been played here in Bochum today. That's a lot a lot of raw data, and I analyzed the matchup results between the five most popular decks today. Here's what I found:

Green-White

Jund

Zombies

Bant Control

Reanimator

Green-White

XXX

3-4 (43%)

5-7 (42%)

5-3 (63%)

3-6 (33%)

Jund

4-3 (57%)

XXX

6-10 (38%)

6-6 (50%)

3-8 (27%)

Zombies

7-5 (58%)

10-6 (62%)

XXX

3-8 (27%)

5-5 (50%)

Bant Control

3-5 (37%)

6-6 (50%)

8-3 (73%)

XXX

4-5 (44%)

Reanimator

6-3 (67%)

8-3 (73%)

5-5 (50%)

5-4 (56%)

XXX

So, we see that Zombies played Bant Control a grand total of 3+8=11 times today, and Zombies only won 3 of those encounters. This means that Bant Control is a 73% favorite in the matchup, according to the data above. Looking further at the numbers in the table, it seems that Reanimator remains well-positioned in the format.

Semifinals - Fabian Dickmann vs. Tomaš Vanek

by Tobi Henke

Both players have succesfully taken the all-important hurdle of the quarterfinal, earning airfare and invitation to Pro Tour Gatecrash. Now it was all about the fame, glory, and additional prizes. Fabian Dickmann, playing on home-turf, got this far with the help of his UWR tempo deck, whereas Czech Tomaš Vanek had help in the form of Black-Red Zombies. Only one player would advance further, though.

Game 1

Vanek had won the right to go first with his superior finish in the Swiss portion of the tournament. A mulligan and a Rakdos Guildgate on turn one, however, was hardly the ideal start for his aggressive beatdown deck. He had Crimson Muckwader on turn two, which met Unsummon, was the re-played and joined by Diregraf Ghoul. When both attacked, Dickmann summoned Snapcaster Mage, blocked the 2/2 and flashed back Unsummon to bounce the Muckwader yet again.

Next turn, Dickmann had ... Thundermaw Hellkite for the win. Vanek, quite upset, slammed his hand on the table: four copies of Mark of Mutiny, possibly his worst maindeck card in this particular matchup.

The big name in this Semifinals is Martin Juza from the Czech Republic. Juza, is a well-known Platinum pro, Grand Prix Top 8 collector, and the winner of the previous Grand Prix Bochum. Today, he is playing the crazy "Hoof, there it is!" deck invented by Brad Nelson. On the other side of the table, we have Kamil Napierski in his first Grand Prix Top 8, running Black-Red Zombies.

Game 2

Napierski answered the Loxodon Smiter with two Knight of Infamy, which may have made Juza wonder why he boarded in the 4/4 again, but Napierski's 2/1 with protection from white wouldn't help against Juza's Thragtusk.

Napierski now was in a tough spot. He still had Mark of Mutiny in hand, but an attack from a stolen Angel of Serenity alone couldn't take Juza down from all the way from 9 life to 0. A couple turns later, Juza had evened the match at one game apiece.

Juza then added Thragtusk to his board, which could profitably block Geralf's Messenger while the 1/1 Spirit tokens attacked. Napierski now seemed to be out of gas; he was stuck with a few red spells in hand, but no red mana in sight.

Finally, Jůza played the last card in his hand, with something akin to a dramatic flourish: It was Gavony Township which soon upgraded his army to power 2. Dickmann's Snapcaster Mage blocked/killed one Arbor Elf anyway, and made available a Searing Spear to get rid off one of the fliers. Still, Dickmann took 6, falling to 6 already.

His Desperate Ravings was indeed a desperate search for answers and nothing came of that. The tokens took game one.

Jůza kept up the pressure with Lingering Souls, while Dickmann once again cast Desperate Ravings. On his face, desperation gave way to resignation. He took a moment weighing his options (of which there were none) then extended his hand in concession.

Martin Jůza 2-1 Fabian Dickmann

Congratulations to Martin Jůza, champion of Grand Prix Bochum 2012!

The Top 5 Cards of Grand Prix Bochum 2012

by Frank Karsten

Here are five cards that sum up some of the biggest stories of the weekend.

Three out of four players that went undefeated on Day 1 had Silverblade Paladin in their deck, and it is a cornerstone of the most popular deck on Day 2: Green-White Aggro. Especially when enhanced with Rancor or Sublime Archangel, Silverblade Paladin allows you to pump out mind-blowing amounts of damage every turn. It makes the 5 life provided by any opposing Thragtusk insignificant in comparison.

The centerpiece of the innovative brew by Max Pritsch and Jan-Moritz Merkel; Nightshade Peddler does an insane amount of work when bonded with Izzet Staticaster or Olivia Voldaren. The seemingly awkward 1/1 for 2 mana has been raising eyebrows the entire weekend, and it has been headlining the list of cards that people were certainly not expecting. Still, both Pritsch and Merkel finished in the Top 32, and their crazy deathtouch-ping concoction will be a Standard force to be reckoned with going forward.

Named to be either the most powerful card in Standard or the most powerful card in their deck by pro players Stanislav Cifka, Olivier Ruel, and Martin Juza. The card is indeed one of the most backbreaking late-game plays in the format, and dealers couldn't seem to keep them in stock. Top 8 competitor Pierre Dagen, who played it in his Bant Control deck, felt that Sphinx's Revelation is way ahead of this Standard's power level. Nevertheless, Dagen fell in the quarterfinals; the Top 4 was fought not with this powerful X spell, but was decided by some of the most powerful creatures in the format.

When Return to Ravnica was just released, many players predicted that Zombies would dominate the format. But that prediction did not come to be, in large part because Thragtusk stops the brain-hungry creatures dead in their tracks and because Pillar of Flame is simply so efficient at dealing with Geralf's Messenger. But metagames change every week; as players were preparing for Blue-White Flash and Green-White Aggro, they started to pay less heed to Zombies. So, cards like Pillar of Flame and even Thragtusk were on the decline this weekend. This gave Geralf's Messenger its moment to shine in the hands of Tomas Vanek and Kamil Napierski, who piloted Red-Black Zombies to the Top 4. As a cheap, aggressive creature that can sap away the opponent's last life points, Geralf's Messenger is the cornerstone card of a deck that everyone will have to pay due respect to again.

And finally, the signature card of Martin Juza's winning deck, which aims to accelerate into a turn 4 Behemoth with either Somberwald Sage or Unburial Rites. And when Hoof enters the battlefield, it almost always instantly kills the opponent as the deck if filled with cheap 1/1 creatures such as Lingering Souls tokens and Avacyn's Pilgrim. The deck was affectionately named "Hoof, there it is!" by Brad Nelson, who invented the deck and is currently tearing up Grand Prix Charleston on the other side of the ocean. But here in Bochum, it was Juza who piloted this amazing Craterhoof Behemoth deck to take the title once again. Hoof!